How It All Got Started

I asked for some questions to answer or story requests on my blog the other day. The first one I got was to tell about my engagement to Lori. I think she does a fabulous job telling this story so I won't completely rip her off. But I will tell you what was going on in my head leading up to the big night. At the time I was working a summer intern with the GDOT. The job site I was on was at the new interchange at what was soon to be the Mall of Georgia in Buford. For the past few months Lori and I had been wandering through malls, holding hands, being completely silly and looking at rings. When she found the "one" she tried it on, ooohed and aaaahed and then returned it to the glass case. That's when I had to start my planning. First off, how in the hell was I going to afford this thing? I wanted to spare no expense for my soon-to-be bride so I just had to have THAT ring. In my feeble mind I knew that the answer would be like so many other people's (that is until the economy recently crashed)....just put it on my credit card! Yeah, that was it, that would be perfect. I could put it on my card now and begin paying it off and would be done in no time. I mean really, I was approaching graduation from Georgia Tech, so I was bound to get offered a job right out of college making a zillion dollars or something like that. What was a couple of thousand dollars, right?

(At this point I am going to insert a little public service announcement. Credit Cards are Evil. Borrowing money is Bad. And this is true for two reasons. One, the bible clearly tells people how to handle their money and it says in Proverbs 22:7 "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender." Secondly, the credit card companies are not charitable organizations. They are in business to make money, and lots of it. How do they do that? By suckering people in to thinking that they can have whatever they want right now with no worries. What's 20% interest among friends, right?)

So anyway, back to my story of the purchase. I had one little problem. My credit limit wasn't high enough. Looking back on my life, that was one of those times when God whispered in my ear to tell me that mine wasn't the best idea, but did I listen? Nope, I just brushed Him away and kept on going. In order to get around this little obstacle I called my god-mother, who at the time, just so happened to be the president of a bank that I happened to have a credit card with. In no time, I had all the credit I could ever ask for. Now it was time to seal the deal. I asked the guys I was working for if I could take a long lunch so I could go pick something up. The agreed and off I went. I bought the ring, put in the little black box and hid it so nothing could happen to it. At this point I kind of felt like Frodo Baggins with my "Precious" ring that seemed to call to me to constantly. I knew I could not let this ring stay anywhere but on Lori's finger and I had to make this happen NOW! So I decided that Thursday was going to be the day. And, I was going to ask her to marry me at the same place where we first met, Zesto in Atlanta. I called Lori that evening and convinced her that we needed to meet to have desert. We agreed to meet at the Varsity since it was about half way from my parent's house in Duluth and her parent's house in Fayetteville. Once we got there I convinced her that Zesto would be better than a chocolate shake from the Varsity, so we got in one car and headed off. Once we ordered I made sure we sat in the exact same same spot where we met. I told Lori I had to run to the bathroom real quick. I ran in and unwrapped the ring that had been burning a freakin' hole in my pocket all night. I was a nervous wreck because I had taken it out of the little black box and wrapped it in tissue paper so it wouldn't be too conspicuous in my pocket. I slipped it on my little finger and closed my hand into a sweaty fist so I wouldn't show it or drop it when I went back out. I was gone for what seemed like an eternity. I went back to our stools, took Lori's hand and recounted the first time we met when I blurted out "Would you marry me?" because she knew who Dale Earnhardt was. At this point I held up the ring for her and asked her if she really would marry me this time. Her eyes lit up, then slightly teared up. She grabbed me and kept saying, "Oh, baby. Oh, baby" I think she eventually said yes once the shock wore off.

(Here is another little side note. I never saw the goofy man that looked like the ugly mountain jugs that had distracted Lori during this whole time. I was too focused on not throwing up my Arctic Swirl because of my nerves)

We immediately left Zesto and headed to Fayetteville to show the ring off to her mom. And the rest is history.

And The Winner Is.....

A few weeks ago I did a contest on this here blog to see who could guess the outcome of my doctors appointment I had last Friday at Emory. It was a huge success since I had four people brave and bold enough to log in an entry. Well, I'm here to announce the winner.


And the winner is......ME! Well not really, my wife and Bethany pretty much tied, but since I'm the one who found out that I'm pretty much cancer free for now, that, by default, makes me the biggest winner of all. And if you want to get really technical, my wife pretty much nailed exactly what happened. But, since she does not drink coffee and is totally kicking ass on her new diet, I am going to hold another contest to see who gets the Starbucks gift card.

Actually, it is just me being lazy. I really like to blog, but I have been struggling with inspiration. I would love to write about something that you people of the blog-o-sphere would want to know or hear about. Ask me a question, request a favorite story, or just give an encouraging word and I'll pick the most thought provoking request as my winner. And maybe I'll throw in an additional gift card that will be a surprise to the winner, but don't worry, It'll be a good one. Thanks for hanging in there with me and helping me through a dry spell.

Don't Forget To Vote

There's only one week and counting until I go to the doctor. Only me and three other people have logged in a vote for my Starbucks gift card give away. Just tell me what you think the doctor will say and when my follow up visit will actually happen. This will be judged like The Price Is Right, the closest without going over will win. So far, I am in the lead, because it's my damn card. If you want to walk away with it though, tell me what you think will happen. I will accept guesses until 9:00 am on Friday, September 24th. Thanks for playing.

An Unscheduled Work Stoppage

In Sunday School the other day we were looking at the book of Hebrews. We've been going over it for several weeks now and were finally on the last chapter. We focused on the first three verses of chapter 13. The are as follows:

1. Keep on loving each other as brothers. 2. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. 3. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

I'm not going to go into a big long dissertation about all we talked about during our class but there are a few things that stuck out from the discussion. I was "bothered" by the part of entertaining strangers. I always have felt guilty for not doing enough things like stopping and helping stranded people on the side of the road or picking up hitchhikers. We talked about that and other thoughts people had regarding the topic. Then one of the guys in class said something that really stuck with me. He basically brought up the point that any time that we are gracious to strangers, are empathetic to others problems and plights, are willing to treat others with kindness in a public setting, or really perform any other act of decency, then we are "entertaining strangers" in the spirit of what the Hebrews writer was getting at. What a brilliant notion. I had never thought of it like that before. I couldn't wait to try that out. Little did I know that my opportunity would come just two days later.

Today on the way to a lunch meeting my boss got a call from a guy that used to work with us a few years ago and a few companies ago. He said that he wanted to come by our office and let my boss look over a list of things and a resume for a job he was applying for. That seems benign enough, except this guy can get you wrapped up in an hour conversation about a twenty second topic. My wife would say I'm guilty of that as well. Anyway, I digress. So all I could think about was how the productivity of my afternoon was completely shot and I was sure to get absolutely nothing done with him in the office. The guy showed up at our place at 1 o'clock and didn't leave until right at 5. And needless to say, I got NOTHING done. But I am so glad I didn't. When this guy came in he began to tell us what he had been doing since he lost his job in Florida a few months ago. For the next few hours my boss and I sat and listened to him tell us how he has been helping clean up his parents house three days a week at a time because his mother has pretty severe Alzheimer's disease. Her house is literally covered in piles of stuff that ranges from wedding china to old Subway wrappers all intermingled because she doesn't remember what is what or where it goes. My friend sat and got choked up as he told about how his mother had been taken from him and how she can't remember anything that has happened recently. At other times he sat and sobbed almost uncontrollably as he told us of his emotional roller coaster where there were times when his mom would do things so strange that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Today he did both. Not only was this guy dealing with not having a job anymore, but now he was going back and forth to his parents house in Augusta, GA several times a week, sleeping on the floor in utter filth because he couldn't get to the furniture or the beds because of all the "projects" that his poor mother was working on. All I could do was try and walk him through his broken thoughts and stories as the emotions poured out from him and do my dead level best to "entertain" this burdened soul for a few hours. When the day had come to an end, I hadn't gotten any work done, but hopefully I had provided a little comfort and much needed companionship. And like verse 3 says, "I will remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners..." And I will remember my friend in my prayers as he continues to face his "prison" located somewhere in Augusta, GA that looks at lot like his childhood home.

Going on the record

I have a doctors appointment at Emory on September 24th. Why? you ask. It's because I had my six month scan and check up with my endocrinologist a few weeks ago. At the check up they did blood work, a body scan and an ultrasound of my lymph nodes. When I met with the endocrinologist to get all the results she said that my blood work looked good. There was no trace of the enzyme that is present when thyroid cancer cells are active. That is very good. My body scan was okay. The two places that showed up on my first scan in the area of my lymph nodes did not show up this time. That is good. But, there was a greater concentration of radioactive iodine in the thyroid bed than before. That could be from regular thyroid tissue that was left behind, or it could be from regenerating cancer cells, or it could be scar tissue. But seeing something there is no great shock to anyone. At least my lungs aren't glowing or some other random place. Finally, my ultrasound came back weird. A new lymph node that was not showing up before is now visible on the right side of my neck. What does that mean? Not sure. The endocrinologist said that it could be cancer or it could just be the lymph node doing what a lymph node does. But because she wasn't sure she wanted me to go back to Emory and have them look at everything again. So here comes the prediction. I predict that I will show up for my appointment with the ENT surgeon on the 24th and will be told that he has looked over my results from the endocrinologist and he thinks things look pretty good. But because his people didn't do any of the tests (mainly the ultrasound) he will want Emory to do their own ultrasound to compare to the "baseline" ultrasound that they did during the summer. So, he will have his people get with the radiology department some time and they will be in touch with me to schedule a time for me to come in for another ultrasound to be accompanied by a fine needle biopsy to see what they really have on their hands. Now, this is where you people that are reading this come in. There are a scant few registered followers and a few more blog stalkers lurking out there. I want to do a little contest. The prize is a Starbucks gift card that I have been carrying around in my wallet for months. I want you to comment on two things: 1 - What do you think the doctor will say to me on the 24th; and 2 - what date do you think I will have a follow up appointment with the radiology department. Ive already told you what I think will happen. I would love to know what you think and have a little fun with all of this crap. And don't worry, you don't have to be follower to be eligible to win the gift card. Can't wait to see what you all think.

Did you hear that?

Did you just hear that? Wait, listen again. What you are hearing is a long, deliberate, restrained sigh that is coming from me right now. My wife knows what this means. And that's pretty much all I can muster to write about for now.